News & Commentary

A coalition of 12 organizations representing youth, parents, the disability community, and civil rights activists today filed a formal petition with the state Council on Elementary and Secondary Education to initiate a public rule-making process to bar school districts from using high-stakes testing as a graduation requirement or grading tool before 2020.

The ACLU of Rhode Island today filed a federal lawsuit to challenge the constitutionality of a 106-year-old statute that declares inmates serving life sentences at the ACI to be “civilly dead.” The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court by ACLU volunteer attorney Sonja Deyoe, is on behalf of two ACI inmates and the women who have been barred from marrying them because of the “civil death” law. Rhode Island apparently remains one of only three states that still has on the books a law like this, whose origins date back to ancient English common law.

UPDATE 6/10/2015: Call the leaders of the House and Senate and the chairs of the Judiciary committees to ask them to support legislation banning life without parole sentences for children in Rhode Island. 

By Hillary Davis, policy associate

By Johanna Kaiser, communications & development associate

The ACLU of Rhode Island and 13 other organizations are urging school districts not to use PARCC as a graduation requirement before the Council on Elementary and Secondary Education's recommended start date of 2020 after some districts requested permission to use the PARCC test as a graduation requirement before the 2020 date.

The legislative session is far from over, and if history tells us anything it’s that our greatest civil liberties battles have yet to make themselves known. In our latest newsletter to members, we discussed the many bills that threaten your liberties in 2015 and beyond. (We also discuss elementary schools' violations of Title IX, our FOIA suit against the DEA, and our concerns about East Providence's hiring practices and Pawtucket Police Department's traffic stop practices, and our upcoming events.)

At least eleven municipalities in the state ask job applicants a question on their application forms that is prohibited by law, according to the ACLU of Rhode Island and Direct Action for Rights and Equality. As a result, the two groups have sent letters to those municipalities – from Burrillville to Warwick to Narragansett – asking them to promptly remove the question, which asks job applicants about their criminal record.

BLACKLISTED: Children of color in Rhode Island are being suspended at the highest rate in a decade, our latest report has found. These growing racial disparities must be addressed if we are to stem the flow of students into the school-to-prison pipeline. Read about our report and ask your legislators to support ACLU-drafted legislation limiting the use of suspensions.